One of the most valuable things you can do as an athlete and I can do as a coach is give you a tailored Warmup and Cooldown to address weaknesses or injuries.
Chris K. of Potomac Crossfit talked to me about knee pain that was continuing to increase over the last few weeks. Chris had a partial meniscectomy (partial removal of the lateral meniscus) on each knee, about 2 years apart.
Most important thing about giving or receiving Warmup/Cooldown advice is to provide feedback. I think that the model I’m gave Chris can work - but the only way to really tell is to get Chris’ feedback.
So I gave him this guidance today, and in two weeks he’s going to tell me if there’s any change. If there is, we keep at it until we don’t see any more positive change and/or we don’t see any pain. If we don’t see change, we throw this away and come up with something else.
Here’s the guidance:
Warmup
1) Perform Daily, Catalyst Athletics Warmup.
2) This is designed for total body explosive movement prep, but very good hip, knee, and ankle flexibility stuff. Certainly won’t hurt your shoulders to do this stuff.
3) Add specific movements, we’ll call this movement prep, that you will be including in the WOD within the warmup. So if the WOD is:
“Kelly”
5 Rounds
Run 400m
25 Wallball, 20 lbs
25 Box Jump, 20 in
you’d add broken up sets of Run 200m, 7 Wallball, 7 Box Jump at some point in the warmup. This gets your CNS ready for the specific movements you are doing, but doesn’t overload you with intensity or volume.
4) So the total Warmup would look something like this:
Two Rounds:
Partial CA Warmup
Run 200m
Partial CA Warmup
7 Wallball, 20 lbs
Partial CA Warmup
7 Box Jump, 20 in
Partial CA Warmup
5) I picked two rounds for the above example because that’s about how much time I want you warming up before a fairly long WOD like “Kelly.” Total rounds will change depending on how you feel and how long the WOD is.
5a. If it’s a longer WOD, but not a lot of movements that would hurt your knees, then shorter warmup.
5b. If it’s a longer WOD with lots of movement that would hurt your knees, longer warmup, but less intense - more dynamic stretching, less movement prep.
5c. If a shorter WOD with movements that hurt your knees, you’ll want to do a longer warmup with a good amount of dynamic stretching, but also a good amount of movement prep.
Post-WOD
1) Let’s start with the basics here and see if we see any progress. Overall goal is to have extremely good flexibility/mobility in the lower extremities so we put as little strain on the knee as possible.
2) Baseline:
Quad Roller
ITB Lax Ball
Gastroc Lax Ball (this is each side of your calf)
Straight Leg Hamstring PNF
Psoas PNF
Calf PNF
Quad PNF
Hips PNF (You can do these on a box or on the ground. You can also do this with a strap on your back and cross your leg Do these on a box.)
3) I’ve found that slightly changing the angle of attach on both stretching and myofascial help a lot.
4) For the Roller and Lax Ball, 30sec to 1 minute is the goal for each movement.
5) I need feedback. Try this for two weeks and at the end of two weeks, tell me:
5a. How many WODs you did.
5b. How many times you did the warmup and post-WOD work.
5c. Any change in pain or mobility after two weeks.
